Approximately 70% of the world population suffer from some sort of foot problems. Only few of the total number have had a chance to purchase insoles that alleviate at least part of the problems. Traditionally, custom-made shoes and insoles have been manufactured by professional shoemakers, physiotherapists, or podiatrists. So far the associated purchase process has been rather time-consuming and costly; a person willing to spend 120-250 EUR on custom made insoles or more than 300 EUR in bespoke shoes has to visit one of aforesaid professionals or their remote partner to get their feet characteristics measured including e.g. a foot size and other properties, advantageously also problem-causing features, after which the order is placed in a waiting list for initiating the actual manufacturing process by the professional. Often the delay between placing the order and receiving the customized shoes/insoles thus extends to few days or even few weeks, which makes the overall process rather awkward especially from a standpoint of a casual client.
Foot motion/gait problems reflect to soles, ankles, knees, hips, back, etc; that is why their treatment and prevention is particularly beneficial to the whole human well-being. An individual takes around 15 000-16 000 steps every day. The load on feet in sports is many times the weight of the body. For example, the ground force is about three times one's body weight while running and 7.5 times while playing basketball due to jumps and other irregular moves. Provided that the foot position is correct, the load divides evenly between the upper joints.
A common condition called pronation refers to inward (i.e. medial) roll of the foot (especially heel and arch), which turns into overpronation when the foot rolls too much. In contrast, oversupination is caused by too small inward roll. Both conditions easily cause pain, wear and even stress injuries in the feet and various body joints.
Different (arch) support insoles are available for correcting the foot position. They have been designed to support longitudinal medial and lateral arch but without separately glued wedges they do not actually correct foot position. Wedging is a time-consuming and expensive process. The obtained result depends on the person doing the task and still tends to be rather inaccurate. As another drawback, after gluing the wedges to the soles one cannot take a new mold without first removing the wedges.
Ready-made supports in the insoles do not provide a perfect match to anyone's feet, as people do not generally bear identical feet shape. Accordingly, many support insoles are ultimately deemed inconvenient due to their lousy fit.